UserLed advertising at the US Superbowl

For this year’s US Superbowl, Doritos has been running a campaign for user-generated advertisement development and the finalists are all superb. Check them out here. The five finalists all get approximately US$14,000 of cash and travel but the winner from those five entries doesn’t get any more money – just the glory of having their ad screened at Superbowl. Thinking about this economically, Doritos will still need to pay around US$2.5 million for a 30 second spot during the broadcast of Superbowl. But instead of paying an average US$350,000 for the production of a 30 second advertisement (and possibly missing the mark entirely in terms of innovation and popularity in the marketplace), offering US$70,000 to be split amongst five finalists is an absolute bargain for a company prepared to engage with User Led content production. Of course there’s the cost of setting up the competition and getting Yahoo to host this online, but comparatively speaking, the cost of running an online promotion is substantially cheaper and more likely to produce some fabulous and innovative campaigns than using an advertising company’s services. Essentially, Doritos is still saving about a quarter of a million in production costs.

This is why I am enthusiastic about my career ahead. There are so many ways that User Led production can save on costs and increase the diversity and innovation resting with stakeholders. These are exciting times for the future of a connected economy.